1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user-initiative voice service system and method, and more particularly, to a method of designing and providing a voice service system which allows a user to control and create a scenario.
More particularly, the invention relates to a user-initiative voice service system and method in which a data structure composed of voice anchors and voice nodes is applied to voice services to support the user so that the user can freely search desired information and resources with any fixed scenarios. Accordingly, the system and method of the invention can provide a user-initiative service which can hardly be provided by either a system-initiative service for providing a service according to one scenario or a mutual-initiative service for providing a slight divergence to a scenario.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, voice service refers to service in which a service provider affords a user with resources through the conversation between a user and a voice service system by using voice recognition and voice synthesis technology. In this case, the user's voice is sent through a wire/wireless terminal. In the case of designing voice services, systems are designed by preliminarily surveying user behaviors and composing scenarios based on the surveys. That is, it plans service scenarios as follows: What menus are to be presented to the user? In a case where the user selects a specific menu, what kind of sub-menu or information is to be presented to the user in the next step? Conventional service scenarios are generally two types of scenarios such as system-initiative and mutual-initiative scenarios.
First, the system-initiative scenario is used to acquire user intention and information, and is composed of questions made by the system and replies made by the user in response to the questions. Then, the mutual-initiative scenario generates divergences according to the reply of the user in response to the system's questions in order to provide a service according to user taste, in which questions and replies are repeated in respective divergences. The two types of scenarios have a common feature in that their beginnings and ends are predetermined. There is also a drawback in that, according to new divergence related with a service provided to the user, the scenario should run from the beginning again so that the user can access new information. Accordingly, the system-initiative scenario is mainly used to provide only one service as in a reservation system, whereas the mutual-initiative scenario is mainly used to provide several services at the same time as in a living information service system.
An example of the system-initiative scenario technology is disclosed by Korean Patent No. 0620450, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR UNMANNED RESERVATION AND OPERATION OF INDOOR GOLF RANGE BY USING WIRE/WIRELESS COMMUNICATION NETWORK,” issued on Aug. 29, 2006.
The technology disclosed in Korean Patent No. 0620450 relates to a system and method for operating unmanned reservation of an indoor golf range by using a wire/wireless network, enabling all operations of the indoor golf range from reservation to shot box allocation. The system includes an ARS system bi-directional communicating with telephones, a server system for acknowledging reservation information, a management control unit for approving the reservation information acknowledged by the ARS system and the server system and informing the user of his/her reservation status, a reservation DV storing reservation information, a card reader for reading the reservation card of the user, displaying the reservation status to the user and a printer for printing the reservation status. That is, according to the technology disclosed in Korean Patent No. 0620450, the user can make a desired date and time zone reservation in the indoor golf range by using the Internet or a telephone. The reservations are automatically arranged and unoccupied shot boxes are automatically notified to the user. This eliminates the need for a manager. This can also reduce economical burden since maintenance fees are rarely needed.
Another example of the system-initiative scenario technology is disclosed by Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2003-0037514, entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD OPERATING LIVING INFORMATION BASED ON VOICE WEB,” published on May 14, 2003.
The technology disclosed in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2003-0037514 relates to a system arid method operating living information based on a voice web capable of easily searching for living information by telephone and then directly connecting a telephone call to a corresponding part of the living information, thereby optimizing user convenience. The system includes a voice web operating server, which is equipped with a voice web (VEB) engine, a charging engine, a receiving engine, an internal interface, a service DB and other additional network equipment, and connected to a wire/wireless public telephone network to output database information, processed by voice template type voice recognition/synthesizing technology, into voice; a database conversion module for converting a text data into a voice template type data, an SMS server for providing a short message service and a voice web editing tool installed in a respective local terminal. According to the technology disclosed in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2003-0037514, such information and advertisement with a number of items and necessary for frequent upgrade can be accessed by telephone. In a case where the user wants to conceal the telephone number, it is possible to provide a fake telephone number. This as a result can prevent any crimes by using the telephone number while optimizing convenience.
According to the living information operating system and method disclosed in the above-mentioned document, information of a number of items requiring frequent upgrade is classified into a voice information structure to be inputted/outputted to a telephone by the voice web operating server, a consumer and an advertiser can be connected on the line to prevent any crimes owing to a telephone number leak, and thus convenience can be optimized.
Another example is a technology about a program design and method for providing a service after voice recognition of massive vocabularies, which is disclosed in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2006-0037228 (WO2004/023455), entitled “METHOD, SYSTEM AND PROGRAM FOR VOICE RECOGNITION,” published on May 3, 2006.
However, the conventional service technologies including those disclosed in the above-mentioned documents merely provide a system-initiative scenario in which a user follows a predetermined scenario or a mutual-initiative scenario which diverges according to user replies, thereby failing to provide services that can satisfy various desires of the user.
In addition, the technology disclosed in the Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2006-0037228 relates to merely a method for constructing a recognition algorithm of a voice recognition engine, in which the user cannot freely adjust or create the scenario unlike the technique proposed by the invention. Furthermore, in the conventional voice service technologies including those disclosed in the above-mentioned patent documents, the system-initiative scenario in which a user follows a predetermined scenario or the mutual-initiative scenario diverging according to user replies is merely provided, which fails to afford services that can satisfy various desires of the user.
Moreover, the technology disclosed in the Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2006-0037228 merely provides a method of constructing a recognition algorithm of a voice recognition engine, and there is a problem in that the user cannon freely adjust the scenario unlike the technology proposed by the invention.